Yesterday, I listened to several U.S. Senate hearings on censorship. One relates to banning books like “Not Every Boy is Blue,” and “Gender Queer.” Since the state of Illinois has made it illegal to ban books, both of these books are in our public libraries. And if you know nothing about them, I urge you to invest seven minutes and listen to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBhy_vlgKS4&t=102s. 

The other was about the government’s attempt to block a court ruling against the Biden administrations censoring free speech.

Here are some excerpts from the original lawsuit.

Missouri v. Biden 

• Is a United States federal case filed in the Western District of Louisiana involving the First Amendment. 
• The states of Missouri and Louisiana filed suit against the U.S. government, asserting that the government’s contact with social media services to request removal of alleged misinformation was a violation of free speech and amounted to censoring conservative views and criticism of President Joe Biden’s administration.
• The lawsuit alleges that President Joe Biden and his administration were “working with social media giants such as Meta, Twitter, and Youtube to censor and suppress free speech, including truthful information, related to COVID-19, election integrity, and other topics, under the guise of combating ‘misinformation.’
• The plaintiffs obtained subpoenas in October and November 2022 from former and current members of the Biden administration, including Anthony Fauci, who served as Chief Medical Advisor to the President; Karine Jean-Pierre, who was the White House Press Secretary; and Kate Starbird, who served as an academic advisor to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
• “The Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the Government has used its power to silence the opposition.
  • Opposition to COVID-19 vaccines; 
  • opposition to COVID-19 masking and lockdowns;
  • opposition to the lab-leak theory of COVID-19; 
  • opposition to the validity of the 2020 election; 
  • opposition to President Biden’s policies; 
  • statements that the Hunter Biden laptop story was true; 
  • and opposition to policies of the government officials in power. 
• The court found that Biden Administration officials coerced and threatened the social media companies to take down content.
• “If the allegations made by plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history. The plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the government has used its power to silence the opposition.”
• It is quite telling that each example or category of suppressed speech was conservative in nature. This targeted suppression of conservative ideas is a perfect example of viewpoint discrimination of political speech. American citizens have the right to engage in free debate about the significant issues affecting the country.”

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court’s ruling and prohibits numerous federal government officials from contracting social media companies as outlined above.

Republican or Democrat. It doesn’t matter. Both parties attempt to spin the news and stories in a way that is beneficial to their party. But this is as low as it gets.